Not applicable.
Retail merchandising practices have undergone significant changes over the past several decades. Because the customer or consumer base now remains stable or something of a fixed number, retailers no longer create facilities to serve new markets but expend their energy and resources to glean customers from their competition. As a consequence, as such competition intensifies, retailing practices must create in-store sales innovations. Generations ago during the earlier years of what is now considered to be modern retailing, brand name promotion was successfully undertaken through the media of the press and airwave. Now, such media has undergone a dilutionary effect, having only nominal input on the retail shopper in consequence of the extensive proliferation of information media. As a result, branding practices no longer necessarily translate into sales. Shoppers now are susceptible to impressions and information they acquire in the stores themselves.
That means that while branding and traditional advertising build brand awareness and purchase predisposition, those factors do not always translate into sales. The standard tools of marketing work, they just don""t work anywhere near as well as they used to. Many purchasing decision are made, or can be heavily influenced, on the floor of the store itself.
As a result, an important medium for transmitting messages and closing sales is now the store and the aisle. That building, that place, has become a great big three-dimensional advertisement for itself. Signage, shelf position, display space and special fixtures all make it either likelier or less likely that a shopper will buy a particular item (or any item at all). The science of shopping is meant to tell us how to make use of all those tools: How to design signs that shoppers will actually read and how to make sure each message is in the appropriate place. How to fashion displays that shoppers can examine comfortably and easily. How to ensure that shoppers can reach, and want to reach, every part of a store. It""s a very long listxe2x80x94enough to fill a book, in my opinion. Underhill, xe2x80x9cWhy We Buy, The Science of Shoppingxe2x80x9d, Simon and Schuster, 1999, pp32-33.
Many relatively larger retail establishments turn to what is referred to as the xe2x80x9copen sellxe2x80x9d approach to the display of goods. This approach places inventory quantities of goods at the aisleways where the customer can touch, smell or try them unmediated by now few and scarce sales clerks.
In 1960, 35 percent of the average Sears store was given over to storage. Today it""s less than 15 percent. Today it""s almost pointless to ask a clerk if an item you want is in the back room. In some stores there is no back room to speak of. Everything is either on the shelves or in the little storage cupboards above or below. It""s a brilliant innovationxe2x80x94what good is anything when it""s in storage? You can""t buy it unless you can find a clerk, and what do you do when there are too few clerks, or too few knowledgeable ones, or too few clerks who are actively trying to help you buy anything? It makes perfect sense to just put it all out there as invitingly and enticingly and conveniently as possible, and then let the shoppers and their good senses discover the stuff on their own. Underhill (supra) pp 165-166.
In the large discount retail environment, the aisle-walking customer is confronted with heavy-duty shelving supporting cardboard cases of merchandise, the cases being cut away to make access to the goods which they retain. Retailers refer to this form of display with the argot, xe2x80x9ccut casexe2x80x9d merchandising. For cut case merchandising to be effective, signage is required to immediately apprise the customer of the technique of use of the goods, important ingredient data and source identification. Thus, the signage must be large enough to draw customer attention, but still inobtrusive to the extent making access to the encased goods easy. Spring biased or hanging hinge signs are problematic, typically functioning to irritate the customer, an aspect militating against a repeat visit to the store on the part of the frustrated consumer.
Not long ago Wal-Mart tried an experiment: It began replacing traditional shelves with a system of bins. Instead of a shelf facing of aspirin bottles, say, the shopper would see a blowup of the aspirin label. Under that blowup was the bin, into which the aspirin bottles had been dumped.
This made an enormous difference. First, it solved the problem of stockingxe2x80x94a clerk could just roll a trolley of merchandise to the aisle, open the bin, dump in the goods and move on. No more straight lines. The shoppers liked it better, tooxe2x80x94instead of facing a row of bottles with tiny print, they saw a large, east-to-read version of the label. It was much easier on the eyes, especially for older shoppers. Wal-Mart""s main concern in making the change was whether shoppers would perceive the bins as being somehow cheaper and lower in quality than the shelves. In fact, just the opposite was truexe2x80x94shoppers interviewed said they thought the bins were an upgraded display system. A very elegant solution. Underhill (supra) p 188.
The present invention is addressed to sign support apparatus employed with retail merchandising shelving of a variety requiring unaided customer access to shelf merchandise. Having particular utility in conjunction with cut case merchandising, the sign supports are of very light weight and exhibit a high level of reliability while remaining sufficiently simple in their operation. In the latter regard, the shelf supports are, in effect, xe2x80x9cself teachingxe2x80x9d in nature with respect to the customer seeking access to shelved, open cartons of merchandise. The sign supports rely in part upon the established tendency of retail customers to touch both merchandise and the display-based objects near them. Only a slight upward movement imparted to the sign support will inherently invite the customer to retract the sign carrying support with a loose pivoting maneuver. No spring biasing is utilized which would otherwise interfere with access to the shelf merchandise. In the latter regard, a spring biased assemblage causing the shelves to return would represent an aggravation to the customer, a condition to be avoided in a modern retail environment utilizing fewer and fewer clerk personnel. A simple relifting of the light sign support restores it to its initial, generally vertical orientation within sight lines from the customer eye position.
Another feature and object of the invention is to provide a sign support apparatus for attachment at the forward edge region of a retail merchandising shelf. The apparatus includes a bracket which is connectable at the shelf forward edge region which has a forwardly disposed vertically extending hinge component extending from a bottom surface to define a slot with an upwardly open top. A stop member is fixed within the slot upwardly a latching distance from the bottom surface to define a retention component developing a loose hinging action and is spaced downwardly from the slot top a receiver distance to define an open receiver slot. A sign support frame is provided having a bottom edge, a top edge and oppositely disposed side members and an intermediately disposed hinge support extending from its bottom edge. A hinge loop is fixed to and extends from the frame hinge support which has an engagement portion extending through and moveable within the bracket retention component from a location adjacent the hinge component bottom surface into freely abutting engagement with the stop member. A tongue member is fixed to and extends from the frame hinge support which is spaced above the hinge loop and has an engagement portion positionable at a vertical location over the slot top when the hinge loop engagement portion is in abutting contact with the stop member. The tongue member is slidably moveable from the vertical location downwardly within the open receiver side into abutting contact with the stop member.
As a further feature and aspect of the invention, a sign retainer is provided having a flat sign support face extending between rearwardly disposed upper and lower support channels which are slidable over the support frame top edge and bottom edge. The sign retainer can be formed as a light polymeric extrusion.
Other objects of the invention will, in part, be obvious and will, in part, appear hereinafter.
The invention, accordingly, comprises the apparatus possessing the construction, combination of elements and arrangement of parts which are exemplified in the following detailed description.
For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.